I somewhat agree. All the reviews for Starcraft 2 are glowing and say it's perfect, but none have said it will win over people who aren't RTS fans like myself. Plus, I think the ad campaign is wrong. Looking at promos it comes off as an action/shooter title not an RTS. I can imagine young players not familiar with 1 getting it and be seriously dissapointed.

Interesting read. I can see how the concept of mixing several genres into one mega-game might be as appealing as it might be disastrous.

You've already addressed the initial problems I immediately thought of so instead:

Adding Racers to the game: Make them war time delivery boys or something. They need to deliver X component/ officer/ etc in a certain amount of time. Maybe while being chased in a NFS: Hot Pursuit style. Oh and add weapons (like Wipeout or even Mario Kart).

EDIT: Also, if you don't review RTS because you admittedly aren't well-versed in them, why do you review JRPGs?

Or what if you did a First/Third Person shooter vs. the RTS, with the player playing the RTS taking the role of like say the AI director thing from Left for Dead, and they can lay traps, change the environment, or move units and the like.

The fanboys will wail and wail for months on end, eventually he will cave,. just as with Borderlands and Smash Bros Brawl, and then he will review Starcraft II. He won't like it, will tear it apart in a review, and all of the fanboys won't understand how he couldn't like it despite his having expressed the opinion several times.

History repeats itself people.

Anyway, nice idea, but I don't personally think the two can ever be integrated fully. FPS/3rdPS players want that freedom to do what they want, RTS players want total control. The two don't mesh, not now not ever.

I think the problem with blending the RTS and shooter generals lie in the boredom of combat. Most of the time RTS units are moving from place to place or waiting for enough forces to consolidate at one point for an attack. Getting itchy trigger finger shooter enthusiasts to spend more than 10 seconds waiting for the commander to be ready is just a bad idea.

In fact a Racing/RTS hybrid would make more sense. The driver that can get his troops in and out of the combat area fastest would be a great asset to a commander, and driving a transport through a maze of gun turrets could be fun if executed right.

Kind of disappointed you don't want to butcher Starcraft 2 like you did to Final Fantasy 13, was hoping you were interested in trying another genre out before playing through a sea of copy-pasted shooters this year with Medal of Honor, Call of Duty, and some other game involving a faceless soldier fighting faceless terrorists.

As to your idea though, it's absolutely insane and possibly fun. Online multiplayer these days is all about forging uneasy alliances anyways. Your design is practically encouraging a risk-reward system of betrayl and loyalty that is barely ever done in videogames (Kane and Lynch tried it, but I felt they could iron it out a bit more. Though I think your system may work as single-player game as well if you crafted the right story and balanced the gameplay issues that would break it.

Okay, being someone who is NOT an RTS fan by any means (mainly because i suck at them, but also because i find micro management to be a chore, and far from fun), this game has gone above and beyond amazing me. The RTS elements are certainly there, but what else you walk away with is quite a bit more. The story is amazing, the in between management (upgrading units, research, ect.) are also quite amazing. The game doesn't make you feel like that overlord, commanding the forces all the time. There are those missions with limited, iconic units that add a different level to the game. These are the kinds of missions i used to hate, but have enjoyed thoroughly in this one.

Overall, yahtzee, normally I would feel the same way. But SC2 has certainly impressed me and kept me captivated.

Shamgarr:Or what if you did a First/Third Person shooter vs. the RTS, with the player playing the RTS taking the role of like say the AI director thing from Left for Dead, and they can lay traps, change the environment, or move units and the like.

Actually that's a pretty cool idea. It seems way too multiplayer focused though. I would like a single player to accustom myself and get into the multiplayer later.

s69-5:Adding Racers to the game: Make them war time delivery boys or something. They need to deliver X component/ officer/ etc in a certain amount of time. Maybe while being chased in a NFS: Hot Pursuit style. Oh and add weapons (like Wipeout or even Mario Kart).

Throwing a courier missions with vehicular combat into modern or futuristic warfare may not be too logical, but damn if it isn't cool. And as you all know, rule of cool trumps logic all the time.

EDIT: Also, if you don't review RTS because you admittedly aren't well-versed in them, why do you review JRPGs?

Because Yahtzee is first and foremost a professional troll. He is iddifferent towards RTSes, which makes it quite hard to tear 'em down - but he hates JRPGs, which makes it very easy to tear 'em down.

Shamgarr:Or what if you did a First/Third Person shooter vs. the RTS, with the player playing the RTS taking the role of like say the AI director thing from Left for Dead, and they can lay traps, change the environment, or move units and the like.

I've had that idea, like, six months ago. I've imagined it like "overpowered shooter protagonists" divided into classes taking on the massed but weak troops and defenses of an RTS player. Also the "shooter" side would be alien spec-ops.

My cousin and I have talked about this very idea a few times because of our different tastes in games. I am good at RTS games, he is good at shooters. His idea was mostly for the old singleplayer Battlefield games where you control 1 guy and the rest of the people on your team are NPCs. He said if he could play his character from first-person and fully control, and I could control the rest of the army as well point him in the direction of the most important objectives at the moment, that we would probably make a pretty good team.

His idea kind of reminds me of how Sins of a Solar Empire works. You have however many players playing, but then you have an AI controlled Pirate faction that basically attacks whoever has the highest bounty when they launch. It could work.

Going off the idea of mixing RTS with other gameplay modes, you should have a look at the pc game Savage 2.

Its a free to play game where you control a character in either a 3rd or 1st person persepective depending on if your attacking with melee (3rd) or projectiles (1st), while a player plays from an RTS standpoint and makes buildings and the like to support the people on the ground. Overall a pretty damn fun game, even if there can be only one person playing the RTS style per team.

The fanboys will wail and wail for months on end, eventually he will cave,. just as with Borderlands and Smash Bros Brawl, and then he will review Starcraft II. He won't like it, will tear it apart in a review, and all of the fanboys won't understand how he couldn't like it despite his having expressed the opinion several times.

History repeats itself people.

Pretty much this. I like that he's sticking to his values and not reviewing something he won't enjoy and tearing it apart for people who will enjoy it. He could easily have made a review that would have gained much notoriety and garnered a fair amount of hits from outside the Escapist too, but he decided not to. I think it's also a far more 'direct' statement than Boderlands and Smash Bros, and he's firmly decided not to go ahead with it.

If he does though, the fanboy response could be interesting. I want another 'Letters' episode like with Brawl.

Savage XR is the answer for you. It features one player as a commander who orders around other players who play all (well, most of) the little guys on the ground. So the combat is dependent on both the commander being able to issue strategic commands, and the skill of the players on the ground.

CitySquirrel:I'm sure RTSs are great, I just suck at them and therefore get no enjoyment. Now, make it turn based and we are talking...

I feel the other way around actually. Real-time (despite only just getting into them and playing Starcraft 2 on casual) I find better because if the enemy is attacking a major objective, you can send out a counter-attack right away. Turn-based requires a lot more preparation for what MIGHT happen (something I'm not very good at), and if you mess it up you can't stop them because it's not your turn.

Reagus:Going off the idea of mixing RTS with other gameplay modes, you should have a look at the pc game Savage 2.

Its a free to play game where you control a character in either a 3rd or 1st person persepective depending on if your attacking with melee (3rd) or projectiles (1st), while a player plays from an RTS standpoint and makes buildings and the like to support the people on the ground. Overall a pretty damn fun game, even if there can be only one person playing the RTS style per team.

One as I was one of those guys who did ask about Starcraft 2, my bad. I just feel like everyone's got rose covered glasses on when it comes to this game, and I wanted someone to look at it with a somewhat more open perspective.

Further note: Having now played it myself, is it just me, or does it feel like the same game from 13 years ago? Normally, I would shake my fist about no innovation in 13 years being kinda lazy, but considering the fanbase, I have to think if Blizz deviated even an iota, there would have been riots. Korea would probably just leave.

Yes, leave. As in get up and walk away. It's happened before. Israel went on strike like 3 times in a six month period a few years back when I was keeping tabs on that spot of the world.

Second thing.

Am I the ONLY guy out there who actually had a blast with Brutal Legend?

Besides Natural Selection mod for Half Life, there's also this mod called "Empires" for Half Life 2. RTS/FPS hybrid and all, one player on a team is a commander and plays in a RTS perspective. Everyone else is an infantry and the commander gives orders. It even has base building and vehicles. Main problem however, you always have random people that refuses to follow orders and just goes off to do their own thing.

One as I was one of those guys who did ask about Starcraft 2, my bad. I just feel like everyone's got rose covered glasses on when it comes to this game, and I wanted someone to look at it with a somewhat more open perspective.

Further note: Having now played it myself, is it just me, or does it feel like the same game from 13 years ago? Normally, I would shake my fist about no innovation in 13 years being kinda lazy, but considering the fanbase, I have to think if Blizz deviated even an iota, there would have been riots. Korea would probably just leave.

Yes, leave. As in get up and walk away. It's happened before. Israel went on strike like 3 times in a six month period a few years back when I was keeping tabs on that spot of the world.

Considering some innovations with other genres have resulted in horribly balanced games (Not mentioning any certain FPS games), I think we should be more focused on game balance than trying out new ideas. I'd imagine if Blizzard opt to go for something different, same thing would've happened to Starcraft 2 as it did to Dawn of War 2, massive disappointment to how the sequel changed for the sake of innovation.

deth2munkies:Savage XR is the answer for you. It features one player as a commander who orders around other players who play all (well, most of) the little guys on the ground. So the combat is dependent on both the commander being able to issue strategic commands, and the skill of the players on the ground.

You would be suprised just how many people do play it, I know I sure am hehe. Yeah, theres currently quite an active community and it is definatley not hard to get in a match with plenty of servers for newbs and country specific